OFlaherty V.C. | Page 9

that your mother
made you pray for MY conversion?
O'FLAHERTY. Sure and she wouldn't want to see a gentleman like
you going to hell after she nursing your own son and bringing up my
sister Annie on the bottle. That was how it was, sir. She'd rob you; and
she'd lie to you; and she'd call down all the blessings of God on your
head when she was selling you your own three geese that you thought
had been ate by the fox the day after you'd finished fattening them, sir;
and all the time you were like a bit of her own flesh and blood to her.
Often has she said she'd live to see you a good Catholic yet, leading
victorious armies against the English and wearing the collar of gold
that Malachi won from the proud invader. Oh, she's the romantic
woman is my mother, and no mistake.
SIR PEARCE [in great perturbation]. I really can't believe this,
O'Flaherty. I could have sworn your mother was as honest a woman as
ever breathed.
O'FLAHERTY. And so she is, sir. She's as honest as the day.
SIR PEARCE. Do you call it honest to steal my geese?
O'FLAHERTY. She didn't steal them, sir. It was me that stole them.
SIR PEARCE. Oh! And why the devil did you steal them?
O'FLAHERTY. Sure we needed them, sir. Often and often we had to
sell our own geese to pay you the rent to satisfy your needs; and why
shouldn't we sell your geese to satisfy ours?
SIR PEARCE. Well, damn me!

O'FLAHERTY [sweetly]. Sure you had to get what you could out of us;
and we had to get what we could out of you. God forgive us both!
SIR PEARCE. Really, O'Flaherty, the war seems to have upset you a
little.
O'FLAHERTY. It's set me thinking, sir; and I'm not used to it. It's like
the patriotism of the English. They never thought of being patriotic
until the war broke out; and now the patriotism has took them so
sudden and come so strange to them that they run about like frightened
chickens, uttering all manner of nonsense. But please God they'll forget
all about it when the war's over. They're getting tired of it already.
SIR PEARCE. No, no: it has uplifted us all in a wonderful way. The
world will never be the same again, O'Flaherty. Not after a war like
this.
O'FLAHERTY. So they all say, sir. I see no great differ myself. It's all
the fright and the excitement; and when that quiets down they'll go
back to their natural divilment and be the same as ever. It's like the
vermin: it'll wash off after a while.
SIR PEARCE [rising and planting himself firmly behind the garden
seat]. Well, the long and the short of it is, O'Flaherty, I must decline to
be a party to any attempt to deceive your mother. I thoroughly
disapprove of this feeling against the English, especially at a moment
like the present. Even if your mother's political sympathies are really
what you represent them to be, I should think that her gratitude to
Gladstone ought to cure her of such disloyal prejudices.
O'FLAHERTY [over his shoulder]. She says Gladstone was an
Irishman, Sir. What call would he have to meddle with Ireland as he
did if he wasn't?
SIR PEARCE. What nonsense! Does she suppose Mr Asquith is an
Irishman?
O'FLAHERTY. She won't give him any credit for Home Rule, Sir. She
says Redmond made him do it. She says you told her so.
SIR PEARCE [convicted out of his own mouth]. Well, I never meant
her to take it up in that ridiculous way. [He moves to the end of the
garden seat on O'Flaherty's left.] I'll give her a good talking to when
she comes. I'm not going to stand any of her nonsense.
O'FLAHERTY. It's not a bit of use, sir. She says all the English
generals is Irish. She says all the English poets and great men was Irish.

She says the English never knew how to read their own books until we
taught them. She says we're the lost tribes of the house of Israel and the
chosen people of God. She says that the goddess Venus, that was born
out of the foam of the sea, came up out of the water in Killiney Bay off
Bray Head. She says that Moses built the seven churches, and that
Lazarus was buried in Glasnevin.
SIR PEARCE. Bosh! How does she know he was? Did you ever ask
her?
O'FLAHERTY. I did, sir, often.
SIR PEARCE. And what did she say?
O'FLAHERTY. She asked me how did I know he wasn't, and fetched
me a clout on the side of my head.
SIR PEARCE. But have